48 THE FINE ARTS. 
seemed a glorious performance, and this all the more as in the East during 
the first centuries of Christianity, the making of sacred images and sculp- 
tures was strictly prohibited by the teachers of the church. Nevertheless 
art has ever found in the doctrines and traditions of religion its best and 
most numerous subjects, and its chief stimulus and support. 
In the year 662, according to others 692, the Concilium Quinsextum was 
held at Trullo; and then it was decreed in the 82d canon, in opposition to 
the decrees of previous councils, that in future the lamb should not be 
depicted on the cross, but Christ in the human form. From that epoch 
commences the use of crucifixes in painting and sculpture; and in the 
earliest ones Christ appears always clothed, with a royal crown on his 
head, and fastened with four nails to the cross. The use of three nails 
did rot arise till the time of Cimabue, who is regarded as the restorer of 
painting. 
Shortly after, namely in the year 723, began the systematic attacks on 
images of the Iconoclasts which set the eastern and western churches at 
variance, and led throughout the greater part of the East to an utter destruc- 
tion of the sacred monuments both of painting and sculpture. Now too 
began a time when the persecution of the works of art was extended to the 
artists themselves: for in the year 825 Michael II. issued repeated edicts 
against the adoration of images; and his successor Theophilus caused the 
holy figures in the pictures still extant to be painted over with birds, 
flowers, and ornamental foliage in the Arabian taste, while he threatened 
those artists who engaged in the representation of sacred subjects with 
severe punishments, and threw them into prison. But in the year 866 the 
use of sacred images began again and spread so rapidly that each military 
cohort carried with it the image of its saint in a small chapel mounted on 
two wheels. 
Many writers are of opinion that the crusades proved of great benefit 
to the arts in the west and were the chief cause of their resuscitation. 
This supposition is based chiefly on the foregone conclusion that in Italy 
art was utterly extinct; so that its first principles had again to be brought 
from the East, where the splendor of the imperial court had constantly 
preserved it from destruction. To this assertion, however, we cannot assent. 
The crusades not only depopulated the country, but they also impoverished 
it; for the crusaders took immense sums of money with them out of the 
country. Of course, the artists, whose occupation flourishes when peace 
and comfort prevail, had to suffer. Nor is it true that any important works 
of art were brought by the crusaders into the West to serve as models: all 
the booty taken consisted of gold, silver, or precious stones, which, without 
regard to artistic value, were divided amongst the warriors, and by these 
again for the most part squandered away. At the taking of Jerusalem, 
in the year 1099, Tancred, it is true, had the good fortune to attack and 
carry the mosque of Omar, which was filled with jewels, and gold and 
silver lamps and candlesticks, and also statues, taken from former Christian 
churches; but all these were the work of Christians in the East, and con- 
sequently dated from a period in which taste and consequently the arts 
432 
